De Forest, Lee, 1873–1961, American inventor, b. Council Bluffs, Iowa, grad. Yale, 1896. He was a pioneer in the development of wireless telegraphy, sound pictures, and television. His triode (1906) made practicable transcontinental telephony, both wire and wireless, and led to the foundation of the radio industry. He is frequently called "the father of radio." The first high-powered naval radio stations were designed and installed by him.

Bibliography

See his autobiography (1950); biography by I. E. Levine (1964).

De Forest, Lee

(born Aug. 26, 1873, Council Bluffs, Iowa, U.S.—died June 30, 1961, Hollywood, Calif.) U.S. inventor. He had invented many gadgets by age 13, including a working silverplating apparatus. After earning a Ph.D. from Yale University, he founded the De Forest Wireless Telegraph Co. (1902) and the De Forest Radio Telephone Co. (1907). In 1907 he patented the Audion vacuum tube detector, which allowed more sensitive reception of radio signals such as his live broadcast of a performance by Enrico Caruso (1910). He developed a sound-on-film optical-recording system called Phonofilm and demonstrated it in theatres (1923–27). A poor businessman who was twice defrauded by business partners, he eventually sold his patents at low prices to such firms as American Telephone & Telegraph Co., which profited highly from their commercial development. Though embittered, he was widely honoured as the father of radio and the grandfather of television.

De Forest, Lee (1873–1961) electrical engineer, inventor; born in Council Bluffs, Iowa. He earned his Ph.D. from Yale in theoretical mathematical physics and electricity (1899). While working for Western Electric Company, he made the first of his inventions. He started a radio broadcasting company (1902) and made the first broadcast of live opera, Enrico Caruso singing at the Metropolitan Opera (1910). Although he invented a number of things crucial to radio, including a microphone and a three-element vacuum tube, or triode, his corporate enterprises failed and he worked briefly with the Federal Telegraph Company (1912). In 1913 he sold his triode invention to the American Telephone and Telegraph Company; the triode made transcontinental telegraphy possible and revolutionized military communications during World War I and would eventually become the basis of modern electronics. He used his profits from the triode to establish a firm in New York City, which he then sold in 1923. He went on to work in telephony and sound motion pictures, but, due partly to his prickly personality, he continued to experience financial and legal complications in each field. Although he eventually held more than 300 patents and was called the "Father of Radio," he died with an estate of only $1,200.